1746 – The Coast of
Virginia
Bonnie
frowned at the coming clouds. It's
a dreich day. There'll be a storm tonight sure as sure.
She drew her eyes from the
Atlantic Ocean with a sigh and reluctantly turned back up the path
leading home. It was quickly nearing dinner and Glenna would not be
pleased to prepare it all by herself – again. She was far too busy
sewing up the girls' new dresses for the party to be bothered with
petty things like dinner. But Bonnie couldn't help it. The sea was
in her blood, just as it was in her father's; he'd said so. The smell
of the salt water sent thrills that she couldn't explain down her
spine, and she loved to spend her afternoons looking down at the
surf.
“Bonnie! Bonnie!” A
cheerful voice called, and a nine-year-old girl raced down the path
toward her. Bonnie caught the child deftly in her arms and spun her
around.
“Margaret! What are you doing
here?”
The girl wiggled excitedly.
“Da's home!”
Bonnie's eyebrow went up. “So
early?”
Margaret nodded. “Aye, and he
sent me to fetch ye straight away!”
Bonnie caught her sister's hand
in her own. “Then we'd better be off!”
They
walked briskly through the sands together, hands swinging. Margaret
sang a marching song from the old country, but Bonnie was too keen on
her thoughts to join in. Da
never comes home early. What's going on?
When the two girls entered the house, Bonnie led her sister to the kitchen where they were met by a pair of glaring green eyes and a sharp tongue.
“Bonnie Rose Allaway, you've
been gone most of the day. And just what sort 'o trouble have ye been
into?”
Bonnie tried to hold back a
grin and waved a distant hand at her sister. “Glenna, dinnae worry
so much.”
Glenna huffed and planted her
hands on her hips. The gesture made her appear much older than her
thirteen years, and her Scottish blood ran too deeply to allow her to
let the remark pass unchecked. But thankfully, any retort she could
make was cut off as Irving Allaway entered the kitchen.
“Noo, lasses,” he announced
grandly. “I'm off!”
Bonnie stared in surprise at
her father. “Off? Where?”
“My ships were blown
off-course by a gale, and I jist got news they're going to
Charleston.”
“Charleston?”
Margaret scrunched up her brow.
“Isn't that in South Carolina?”
“Aye,” Irving snatched a
loaf of bread off the table and wrapped it in a kerchief. Without
ceremony, he stuffed it into the bag he'd carried in with him. Glenna
moaned softly as her freshly-baked loaf vanished, but she said
nothing to discourage him.
“This could be the change 'o
our fortunes, me bairns,” he continued, raiding the pantry for
other edibles to add to the bread. “This will make us rich! Joseph
Smith will be sure to take me as partner then, and all our troubles
will be over!”
Bonnie's breath caught in her
throat. “Really?”
Irving stopped rummaging to
embrace her tightly. “Jist think, me Bonnie Rose, we'll have
servants and all the fine things yer wee hearts could desire. No more
cooking, no more tending the garden, no more work for any 'o us!
We'll have more money than you could ever dream of!”
Margaret clapped her hands.
“Da, can I get pearls then?”
“May
I,”
Glenna corrected under her breath.
But Irving didn't notice. He
picked Margaret up and danced her around until she squealed. “Aye,
strings upon strings 'o pearls. I'll bring them back for ye!”
Glenna's jaw dropped. “Bring
them back?”
Irving put Margaret down to
grab his middle daughter's hands. “I'll bring anything ye want
back. Tell me, Glenna, what do ye want?”
Glenna's green eyes narrowed
for only a moment, and she looked down. Bonnie knew that her sister
was seeing the worn blue dress hidden beneath her cooking apron.
Despite all her skill with the needle, Glenna couldn't hide their
shameful poverty.
She locked gazes with her
father. “A dress. A fine silk or brocade dress. Something I won't
be ashamed to wear.”
Irving kissed her loudly on the
forehead. “Then ye shall have it, me lass!” Lastly, he turned to
Bonnie and grasped her shoulders gently. “And what would ye have me
bring ye?”
Bonnie's
mind raced. Rarely was her father mistaken about the activity of his
ships, few that they were. If the trade he boasted of truly waited
for him in Charleston, he could easily bring her back whatever her
heart desired. Things like pearls and fine gowns were mere items
compared to the riches they were promised. What
do I want more than anything else?
A laughing face came to her
mind, teasing her so that Bonnie could not push it away. There was no
use trying to deny it, for her own soul knew her better than she did.
“A rose,” she finally said. “A single, red rose.”
Irving's face softened
instantly and he covered her cheek with his hand. “Like yer ma's.”
Bonnie bit her lip. You won't
start crying. Not now, not when he's about to leave. “I'd like to
plant a garden like hers... to remember her by.”
“Then ye shall have it.”
Irving whispered. “By the bounty of God, I am what I am, and I will
bring it back to ye.”
He quickly bade his three girls
farewell, and all too soon he had saddled his horse and was galloping
away. Bonnie stood with her sisters at the door, watching and waving
until he was completely out of sight.
“I wish he'd waited until
morning to go,” Bonnie said. “He's sure to get caught in the
storm.”
“Och, let him be,” Glenna
scolded. “If he cannae wait, he cannae wait.” She tugged on her
sister's arm, drawing her back into their small house. “Come on, ye
get to cook the neeps.”
Bonnie wrinkled her nose at the
mention of the vegetable. Turnips were her worst enemy, but she knew
she should be grateful for the Lord's provision.
The days passed slowly as
Bonnie and her sisters waited for news from their father. Glenna took
advantage of his absence to assume temporary command of leadership
and ordered Bonnie and Margaret around in a mad cleaning frenzy.
Windows were washed, curtains were mended, and everyone choked on the
dust Glenna stirred up with her broom.
“I won't have him returning
to a dirty house,” she told Bonnie more than once. “When we're
rich, we'll have servants to clean for us, but I refuse to smell like
a barn. If you had more initiative, this would already be done.”
Bonnie gladly surrendered the
role over to her younger sister. Even though she had just turned
sixteen and was expected to behave like a proper adult, she just
couldn't seem to reconcile herself to that fact. It was so much
easier to escape to the coast and dream with the sand between her
toes. Margaret joined her on a few occasions, but usually the retreat
found only Bonnie alone gazing at the waves.
She'd dream about her father
returning just as he said, wondering what would happen to them, how
they would fit into fine society when the foreign trade giant Mr.
Smith accepted Irving Allaway as his partner. Most of the time,
though, she thought of her mother and the old country. Moving to
America after Aisla Allaway's death had not been easy for any of
them, but Bonnie knew their prospects were better here in Virginia
than they had been in Scotland.
It was a week since Irving's
departure when Glenna rushed into the house, waving a letter clenched
tightly in her fist. “It's from Da!”
As the oldest, they all agreed
Bonnie had the most right to open it and read it aloud. With
trembling fingers, she did so, the sight of her father's familiar
scrawling hand bringing tears to her eyes. He had yet to reach
Charleston, but he spoke in high spirits, echoing his former promises
of wealth. Glenna and Margaret sighed with joy at the thought of
their gifts, but Bonnie found herself puzzled over a paragraph Irving
had written near the close of his letter.
Do
not be alarmed for my writing this, but I can scarcely excuse this
from the tale of my journey. A few days past, a storm caught me on
the road, throwing me about so that I completely lost my way. I'm not
sure what I would have done if I had not stumbled upon a hidden
drive. Do not ask me how I found it, only God knows. It led to an old
mansion, and I thought it deserted. However, I was greeted at the
door by two servants. Neither spoke to me, but they took me in, fed
me, and gave me a warm bed to sleep in. The next morning, they
brought me bangers and eggs for breakfast and prepared my horse for
my journey onward. Odd, that they never spoke, but I now deem them
both mute. They must live there alone, for I never saw another soul.
Unless their master refused to see me. But Bonnie – as I left the
mansion, I glimpsed the most wonderful rose garden on the grounds. I
wish you could see it. Your ma would have loved it. The roses are the
purest red you could imagine.
“What kind of house do ye
suppose it was?” Margaret asked when Bonnie had finished.
“A mansion, that's what.”
Glenna rolled her eyes.
“No, no – why was it
abandoned? Was it haunted?”
“Really, Margaret!”
Bonnie chewed on her cheek.
“Why would the master not greet Da?”
“He probably wasn't home,”
Glenna said. “The family could have been visiting...” she
searched for a viable place but came up empty. “Somewhere.”
Margaret's eyes gleamed with
mischief. “Or maybe they'd all been killed off by pirates. Bloody
bandits murdering them in the night, beheading them and cutting off
their...”
Glenna's mouth dropped open in
horror, and Margaret ran screeching from her prying fingers. Bonnie
laughed at her sisters' antics, knowing fleet-footed Margaret too
much of a match for Glenna to catch. She might have joined in the
chase, as unladylike as it was, but the mysterious mansion bothered
her. For some unknown reason, she couldn't shake the premonition that
grabbed her when she'd first read the letter. That night she tucked
the letter safely under her pillow and fell asleep envisioning the
rose gardens. Thousands of roses, rich roses, velvet to the touch,
each one sweet with the scent of her mother. Yet her dreams turned on
her, and she found that every time she bent to pick a bud, it was
dripping blood.
God bless!
